In the following essay, Pielke surveys the defining characters of science fiction films by comparing the popular movies Star Wars and 2001.

Those with even the barest knowledge about the “movies” (not as a business but as an art form, when the term “cinema” is used instead), know that science fiction films have only rarely achieved artistic respectability. More often than not, they're referred to as “flicks,” a term which does not exactly connote a quality product. This despite the most recent releases: Close Encounters of the Third Kind, The Empire Strikes Back, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, and (of course) E.T.: The Extra-terrestrial. Their acclaim, however, has most frequently been in terms of special effects or sheer, monster popularity. It Came From Hollywood, an anthology of some of the worst...